Craneware healthy after half-year profits rise

Software company Craneware is confident of delivering further growth this year after seeing its first-half profits rise 7 per cent to $4.8 million (£2.9m).

Craneware chief executive Keith Neilson. Picture: Neil Hanna

The Edinburgh-based firm develops software that helps hospitals in the United States make sure they charge patients and health insurers the correct amounts. Chief executive Keith Neilson said it has benefited from a rise in work from larger healthcare providers.

Revenues for the six months to the end of December grew by 5 per cent to $21.1m.

Neilson said: “We have seen a continued increase in sales during the period, to progressively larger hospital groups.”

Neilson said the firm does not regard the outcome of September’s referendum as a major risk, but the on-going wrangling over which currency an independent Scotland would use is creating “uncertainty, which is never a good thing for any company”.

He added: “We report in dollars, we’re listed in London and we have a big proportion of our staff in Scotland.”

Aim-quoted Craneware employs about 85 people in Edinburgh out of a total workforce of 200, and Neilson said he expects its number of developers to grow on the back of rising sales.

Almost 2.2 million people in the US have now signed up to private health insurance ushered in by president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. That figure is predicted to rise ahead of a deadline at the end of this month, after which people will face tax penalties.

The interim dividend, to be paid on 25 April, was lifted to 5.7p a share, from 5.2p a year ago.